It
was a desperate contest. Once overcome, the Achaeans reassembled an
army and marched to the combat with their wives and children. The
general Dioeus shut himself in his house with his whole family and set
fire to the building. Corinth had been the centre of the resistance;
the Romans entered it, massacred the men, and sold the women and
children as slaves. The city full of masterpieces of art was pillaged
and burnt; pictures of the great painters were thrown into the dust,
Roman soldiers lying on them and playing at dice.
THE HELLENES IN THE OCCIDENT
=Influence of Greece on Rome.=--The Romans at the time of their
conquest of the Greeks were still only soldiers, peasants, and
merchants; they had no statues, monuments, literature, science, or
philosophy. All this was found among the Greeks. Rome sought to
imitate these, as the Assyrian conquerors imitated the Chaldeans, as
the Persians did the Assyrians. The Romans kept their costume, tongue,
and religion, and never confused these with those of the Greeks. But
thousands of Greek scholars and artists came to establish themselves
in Rome and to open schools of literature and of eloquence.
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